Hand drills are commonly used in drill presses which are adapted to hold the hand drill in a fixed position and allow adjustment vertically or at an angle with respect to the drill press table on which the work piece is mounted. In order to use such a combination, it is necessary to align the hand drill properly with the work piece on the table. The normal procedure is to level the table attachment whenever possible, and subsequently to adjust the hand drill to the desired position after it is mounted on the drill press. There have been many devices used in an attempt to obtain such alignment. However, most of these devices relate to means for aligning the hand drill and leveling it with respect to the case of the drill. Such alignment presumes that the case will have specific flat surfaces which may be used for this purpose. Many of these cases are designed in order to have a pleasant appearance and to avoid sharp corners so that there is no such flat surface. With this type of drill it is almost impossible to obtain a proper alignment using available alignment techniques.
A further method for attempting to align the hand drill with the work table has been to use bubble levels of various types. These levels may be fairly accurate in aligning the table itself, but the same difficulties as discussed above are inherent in attempting to align or level the hand drill itself.
There have been proposals to use an alignment tool which fits directly into the chuck of the hand drill. Such a device is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,838,935 issued to Alfred Boyagaian. However, such a device is limited to certain usages and specifically to reading only right angles. Further it requires that the drill be positioned so that the alignment tool can be brought into direct contact with either the work table of the drill press or drill stand. Other factors limit the use of such a device.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an alignment device which relies on the use of a liquid within the device to indicate the angle at which the device is set. It further may be used by placing it directly upon the work table using the same liquid indication within the instrument to indicate the position of the table and for leveling the same.